Rgp 3d games

Arcanum was dark 'n' gritty before some such tendencies became all the rage, and its character creator allowed players to create everything from gnome gamblers who brandish self-explanatory Tesla-guns to outcast orcs lugging along rusty maces. Toss in non-linear progression and multiple solutions for quests, and you've got a winner that holds up 14 years later. It also adds much of the humor that we loved from the classic games: How can you not appreciate a game that gives you a nuclear grenade launcher?

It makes the game harder, but also more rewarding. Name any similar-looking RPG made in the past five years, and chances are good Dark Souls will be named as an inspiration for its design. Still, Dark Souls 3 proves that no one does it quite so well as From Software. The spark of originality that was so compelling in Dark Souls 1 isn't quite as apparent here, the second sequel in just five years, but what remains is an impeccably designed combat-heavy RPG.

It's far more responsive than its predecessors, demanding faster action and reaction without sacrificing the deliberate play Dark Souls popularized. Button mashing will get you nowhere but dead. Dark Souls 3 is the most approachable in the series thanks to frequent warp points, simplified online co-op and beautiful and hideous art that beckons you to explore every nook and corner. No game series manages to reward you so profoundly for scrutinizing its lore and unfurling its secrets, and Dark Souls 3's faster, tighter controls and animation make it the most fun Souls game to play.

The epic scale of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is remarkable, but it's the power of choice in an unrelentingly ugly world that makes it unforgettable. Moral ambiguity has never been so powerfully presented: the decisions you make actually matter, and the outcomes are often unforeseeable and rarely as good as you'd hope.

One of the most impressive things about The Witcher 2 is the way it blends two very distinct experiences. Early in the game, Geralt must make a choice that will take him down one of two separate paths, each offering a completely different perspective on the game's events.

If you want to see it all, you'll have to play it twice—and there's more than enough to make it a worthwhile effort. You might expect all your toil and trouble to eventually lead to a just and happy ending for all, but it won't. Geralt isn't a hero; he's really not much more than a bystander, trying to protect what little he has from the chaos that surrounds him. His quest is entirely personal, driven forward by a colorful, occasionally bizarre and surprisingly believable cast of characters that really brings the game alive.

Geralt works alone, but he feels more like "one among many" than the savior-protagonists of other party-based RPGs. It's a fantastic and well-told tale, layered over very solid mechanical underpinnings: A flexible character development system, glorious eye candy, intense combat and more than enough secondary content to camouflage its very linear nature.

It's dark, it's dirty, it's sometimes flat-out depressing—and it's brilliant. Ferelden evokes much of the Forgotten Realms without feeling like a rehash, and your relationship with your team has that old BioWare magic. The darkspawn feel like the kind of world-consuming threat that demands our attention, even if most of them are faceless hunks of evil for us to cut down.

We love how Dragon Age treats magic in its world, in particular the quests that force us to choose how to best handle abominations, the result of a renegade mage succombing to demonic possession. That loneliness is key because Shock 2 is all about taking things away from you. Think twice before you walk into that radiated room. But the biggest thing Irrational takes away, right at the halfway mark of the game, is hope. Irrational made games where the environment is the central character, and here, that character is the Von Braun.

It creaks and moans as you pad quietly down its corridors. Every door you open yelps. Its security systems attack you as if you hurt their feelings. Some play through with all guns blazing, but the psionics skills balance well with combat, and Tech skills open new areas later in the game.

The Guardian was one of the most terrifying things our young minds had ever encountered. His massive stone face emerging from the screen, with his actual, real-life voice taunting us, both tempting us to play more and horrifying us.

It was a technological marvel at the time, but Ultima 7 stands the test of time because of the interactivity of Britannia. This is without a doubt the best installment of one of the most legendary RPG franchises ever. Do you want to run in the firefight, guns blazing, or do you want to sneak around and flank? Do you want to snipe?

Or maybe you want to hack some terminals and get droid reinforcement? Or, what if you talked to that NPC guard over there and convince his team to take a lunch break? While it looks like a shooter, Deus Ex is all about role-playing elements. The leveling system rewards experimentation, and some of the later upgrades make your Denton feel like a superhero.

The attention to detail here is perfect, and no one element of the game ever truly feels forced. And there are a lot of clues—every note you find or sign you see seems to hint at some new conspiracy, and we love how the alliances in the game feel constantly in flux.

The NPCs you meet are just believable enough to make this conspiracy-laden world feel lived-in. Human Revolution looks better, but this is the smarter, more open-ended game. The release of Fallout 4 demonstrated that some cracks are starting to appear in Bethesda's usually reliable open world model, but that model seemed earthshaking back when Morrowind hit literal shelves way back in There was a magic in knowing you could tromp all over the island of Vvardenfell without even encountering a loading screen save upon entering buildings, and in seeing that the NPC population seemed to have lives beyond their interactions with you.

Plenty of other games have achieved similar effects in the years since, but the wonder of Morrowind is that it still holds up all these years later—even more so than its technically superior successor Oblivion. A lot of that appeal springs from the delicious surrealism of Vvardenfell itself, where racist elves hang out in twisty mushrooms like smurfs in an acid dream, and where the more traditional castles of occupying foreigners clash with the landscape like pueblos in Scandinavia.

The AI might often seem primitive by today's standards, but the stories the tell often rival those in prettier contemporary RPGs. It thrives still, thanks in part to its own strengths and a dedicated modding community that creates countless new adventures and keeps it looking more modern than it actually is even going so far as to port the entirety of Morrowind into newer game engines. The universe was a place we wanted to live, but there were too many systems and menus to dig through to get there.

Still, it terrified us to hear that BioWare had streamed back so much and put more emphasis on the shooting mechanics. Turns out, it was for the better: Mass Effect 2 trims just enough fat to let you focus on what matters: the optional Loyalty missions for your team.

Recruiting a team to take on the Collectors puts the focus on small, interesting stories. Once you've grown to know and love them, the endgame suicide run is one of the tensest final missions ever. It's rare for a game to spend more time on character arcs than its central driving narrative, but Mass Effect 2 pulls it off. This is some of the best writing in BioWare's history.

So is discovering the rich lore of Lordran, which is told through cryptic conversations and subtle environmental clues. The depth of Dark Souls' world carries over into exploration, too. Everything is connected brilliantly, and secrets and shortcuts—including massive hidden areas and features—await the most dedicated adventurers. Dark Souls' summoning system is also unlike anything else in RPGs, but you can unplug and beat the whole game solo, or learn to love being invaded and fighting off another player.

The sequel expands that world considerably, and adds more moral ambiguity to a game where right and wrong are already hard to tell apart. The search for the Garden of Eden Creation Kit GECK fits the warped s feel of the wasteland more than the macguffin of a water chip in the first game. It makes a huge difference: instead of wimpy fighters and frail wizards, you get powerful, useful spells and warriors that can take a punch.

It also helps that the scope of Amn is enormous, with more quests and content than most other comparable RPGs. Yes, this is where RPG romances come from, but the courtships never feel contrived here, and BG2 still has some of the most memorable companions of any game. If you have the original version, you can easily mod it to run at modern resolutions, or you can try the Extended Edition that also includes new content.

Check out everything we know about the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3 being developed by Larian. Given that the studio is the creator of two other entries to this list, we have high hopes for the unexpected third entry to the series. The tattoos the Nameless One wears are marks to remind him of who he is, who he was, and who he wants to be. That open-endedness is central to what makes Planescape: Torment so captivating.

At a literal level, you spend the game trying to discover who the Nameless One is, but your actions also help to define him. Most importantly, that your goal is not to save the world, as in countless other RPGs. You simply need to figure out who you are. Others are just interesting, well-rounded characters: Fall-From-Grace is a succubus cleric who prays to no god and, though a creature of evil, wants to do no harm.

Arx is slow and deliberate, forcing you to consider encounters from different angles: should you use force on the snake women, or sneak past and avoid conflict? The mouse gesture magic system seems awkward to use, but we love tracing a rune and watching our foes crumble in the aftermath.

Hey folks, beloved mascot Coconut Monkey here representing the collective PC Gamer editorial team, who worked together to write this article! PC Gamer. Dark Ages. Death Rally. Descent II. Dinosaur Predators. Disney's Aladdin. Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

Drum Blaster. Epic MegaGames , Larry Tipton. Duel Duke Nukem. Duke Nukem 3D. Duke Nukem II. Dungeons of the Necromancer's Domain. Earthworm Jim. Rainbow Arts , Shiny Entertainment. EGA Coloring Book. EGA Trek. Electro Man. Epic Baseball. Epic Pinball. Evasive Maneuvers.

Even More Incredible Machine, The. Extreme Pinball. Digital Extremes , Epic MegaGames. Electronic Arts , Epic MegaGames. Flight of the Amazon Queen. Football for Windows. Fuzzy's World of Miniature Space Golf. Gargoyle Medieval Pack. Coktel Vision , Sierra On-Line. Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon. God of Thunder. Gold Hunt. Googol Math Games. Googol Review. Googolpede for Windows. Grand Theft Auto. Heartlight PC.

Hero's Heart. Heros I: The Sanguine Seven. Hexen: Beyond Heretic. Hocus Pocus. Holiday Lemmings Hoosier City. Hugo II, Whodunit? Hugo's Horrific Adventure. Hugo's House of Horrors. In Search of Dr. Incredible Machine, The. Incredible Machine 2, The. Incunabula: The Unspoken Secrets. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Inner Worlds. Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom. Iron Blood. Isle Wars. Jazz Jackrabbit. Jelly Bean Factory, The. Jetpack Christmas Special! Jill of the Jungle. Jump 'n Bump. Jumpman Lives! Keen Dreams. Ken's Labyrinth. Kingdom of Kroz II. Lava Cap. Lion King, The. East Point Software , Virgin Interactive. Loader Larry.

Lost Vikings, The. Lugnut Math City. Lure of the Temptress. Mad Painter! Magic Crayon. Magic Pockets. Mah Jongg. Mah Jongg Mah Jongg -V-G-A-. Mah Jongg for Windows. Mah Jongg LapTop. Major Stryker. Math Rescue. Interplay Productions , Playmates Interactive Entertainment.

Mega Man X. Capcom , Rozner Labs Software Group. Mice Maze. Micro Machines. Monster Bash. Monuments of Mars, The. Moraff's Entrap. Moraff's Escapade. Moraff's Flygame. Moraff's Pinball. Moraff's Revenge. Moraff's Stones. And many of those hours are spent chatting with a variety of compelling characters. Then again, it could backfire, leaving you worse off than before. Your path is determined early on by a seemingly innocuous decision. But what really sets Front Mission 3 apart is its mech-building mechanic.

Every enemy mech you take down goes into your inventory, and you can swap parts around to create the patchwork mech of your dreams. To begin, you can customize up to six adventurers, with professions like warrior, rogue, hunter, and magician.

True to the title, the bard is probably the most useful, because his songs cast spells that help out your entire party. Set in the world of the Riftwar novels by Raymond E. You control three adventurers as you make your way through nine chapters of a fantasy story, fighting enemies, picking locks, maintaining degradable gear, and solving riddles to open Moredhel wordlock chests.

Combat plays out like a turn-based strategy game, with combatants moving around on a grid to deliver strategic strikes. Make sure you bring your reading glasses, because Krondor is dense with text, which should come as no surprise considering its literary origins. Most RPGs center around adventurers in a fantasy world.

Freedom Force, on the other hand, is about superheroes in a modern setting. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this game is the combat. Each of your four heroes has unique moves, but they can also interact with the urban environment. Parked cars can be hoisted and hurled at enemies. Light posts can be pulled out of the ground and swung like baseball bats. And while the combat takes place in real time by default, you can pause at any time to issue instructions to your party.

Freedom Force is a stylish game that oozes charm and originality at every turn. And it is, but Larian Studios has modernized more than just the graphics. Every location is brimming with creative ideas and new things to find, making it a real challenge to stop playing.

All of this, and it also manages to be funny throughout. Its story, about closing a breach in the fabric of the world, is about as epic as single-player games get.

And its character creation options are nearly limitless. But its most impressive achievement, and the reason players keep coming back to it, is the characters. Inquisition is stocked with sharply written, well acted characters that come to feel like good friends by the time the game is over. Any game that can deliver that kind of experience is worth playing at least once.

Darkest Dungeon wastes no time plunging players into a mood of doom and gloom. You control a party of adventurers who trudge into the depths of a dungeon, taking on enemies in turn-based battles as you go. Randomness plays a large role in the game, so you can never settle into a comfortable rhythm. The class system is nicely varied, making it rewarding to try different party combinations.

Each character has a unique set of moves, some of which need to be unlocked and all of which can be upgraded. For a game that might look simple on the outside, these overlapping systems add a great deal of complexity. And with the difficulty level so high, winning always feels rewarding. The games center around Adol Christin, a redheaded hero on a quest to collect the books of Ys and takes on the evil forces rampaging through the world. With splashy real-time combat and eye-catching anime cut scenes, this collection helped prove that CD was the gaming medium of the future.

Kingdom Hearts 2 considerably ups the combat possibilities of its predecessor, introducing new forms — and snazzy new suits — for Sora to wear. The addition of the Reaction Command in combat also spices battles up, making for a combat experience made even more varied by the addition of the new Nobodies enemies.

By streamlining some of the first Kingdom Heart's systems, including magic and the awful Gummi Ship levels — not to mention deepening the lore to stranger, more engaging depths — the first numbered sequel in the 15 year old franchise is still one of its strongest and one of the most fun to play. Create another classic, of course.

Rather than rehashing ideas from Chrono Trigger, Square decided to mix things up quite a bit with the sequel. Chrono Cross takes place in an entirely different world and stars a new set of characters. But what really sets it apart is its unique battle system, which cleverly mixes turn-based tropes with real-time elements. Your characters have stamina meters that fill up between attacks.

The longer you wait to make a move, the more powerful the move will be. The callbacks to Chrono Trigger are just icing on an already impressive cake. Some people like short games: get in, have fun, and move on. Dragon Warrior VII is not for those people. This endlessly charming RPG is so packed with quests and breezy conversations that you can play it for well over hours without ever running out of things to do. Not only did the first game offer one of the most ambitious adventures available on the NES at the time, but it also spawned a series that now comprises dozens of sequels and spinoffs.

With its relatively robust class system, its four-character party, and steady injection of new gameplay ideas throughout the adventure, Final Fantasy helped cement a whole host of RPG tropes that would remain for decades to come.

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss has it beat by over 20 years. In this pioneering first-person RPG, you explore a sprawling dungeon using free movement rather than the grid-based system that was common at the time. You can gather useful items, pick your responses during conversations, and power up your character in a staggering number of ways.

As you explore the ruins, the music shifts on the fly to match whatever tone your adventuring takes on. This long-running MMO contains thousands of star systems you can explore at your leisure unless space pirates show up and blast you to oblivion.

It presents players with a universe to explore and a basic set of gameplay systems. What you do with that is up to you, thanks to open-ended gameplay that rewards creativity and collaboration. You can join up with other players and take part in multi-day space battles, or you can go off and mine resources to sell for a profit at the next space station. If you want to blow tens of thousands of real-life dollars building a city-sized space ship, you can do that too.

The universe is your oyster. The story is shot through with humor that plays out in the script, but also in the many expressive character animations packed into the game. It tells the story of Claude and Rena, unlikely companions who come from very different backgrounds. Claude is a spacefaring adventurer who accidentally transports himself to Expel, a faraway planet of magic and fantasy, where he meets Rena, who thinks he must be a legendary Hero of Light.

On top of that promising setup, the game is rife with intricate systems, all of which offer unique charms. An item creation mode lets you break down collectibles into food and gear. During real-time battles, you can control whichever party member you want, hopping between them to take advantage of their unique abilities. The graphics hold up well, with a dynamic battle camera, pre-rendered backgrounds, and expressive sprite-based characters. When the spirit of the earth asks you to do something, you do it.

For one thing, it shoehorns shooter mechanics into a turn-based strategy game. But somehow Sega took these seemingly incongruous ingredients and cooked up a truly impressive game. The battles are tactical but intense, thanks to a perspective that lets you plot your moves from an overhead view of the battlefield before swooping down and giving you direct control of your troops as you put your plan into action.

The characters are well written, and the game actually seems to have something to say about war. So while it mostly ditches side quests and puzzles that were common in its predecessors, it zeroes in on deep character creation tools and tons of combat variety.

You start out by creating a party of up to six adventurers, selecting their class, gender, and race. It presents you with mummies, skeletons, bugbears, orcs, goblins, giants, and a whole mess of other fantasy beasts to slay. In , Icewind Dale II was the perfect chaser to its sprawling, meditative predecessors. It even holds up today. Following an orphaned adventurer investigating relics called Silver Shards, NW2 improved on the first game in marked ways, especially in its narrative.

More importantly, it featured online co-op and a development toolset with which players could create their own scenarios for the game, both of which helped ensure Neverwinter Nights 2 would have an avid following to this day. It built on everything fans love about the series, from its strategic turn-based battles to its focus on story and characters. Sometimes all a game needs is a second chance, and Odin Sphere got one with Odin Sphere Leifthrasir in Toby Fox wrote and designed, developed, composed the music for, and released Undertale solo, his only help from additional artists.

And it took the gaming world by storm, largely thanks to its deceptively simple story and combat systems, which worked together to conceal great narrative depth. Undertale turns nearly every RPG trope in existence on its head, while simultaneously feeling good as an RPG — a truly incredible feat.

Ni no Kuni: Wratch of the White Witch follows the adventures of Oliver and his companions, who include an oddball fairy named Drippy, as Oliver tries to save his mother.

Its unique combat system paired well with a Pokemon-like creature collection element, while its world brimmed with fantastic sights and sounds.

It even let players export their characters into later games in the series, another precursor of things to come. Dragon Quest VIII is considered by many fans to be among the best entries in the series, which is saying something for a franchise this popular.

This was back in the height of cartoonish, cel-shaded graphics, but even then this game stood out for its gorgeously rendered world. It also managed to be less complex than some of its predecessors, eschewing a complicated job system, which many players — weary of convoluted systems in contemporary RPGs — found refreshing. In an era when many of the most popular games, including all the best Super Nintendo games, were still telling their entire stories through text boxes, Lunar: Eternal Blue was ahead of its time with not just all those cutscenes but over an hour of voiced dialogue, all thanks to the Sega CD format.

It eschewed the turn-based combat of the previous games in favor of more action-oriented gameplay, and more importantly its impressive network features let players from all over the world connect and play with each other, with innovative communication options including unique emoji and other symbols.

It also featured voice acting for the first time in the series, not to mention being remembered for its jazzy soundtrack by composers Yoshino Aoki and Akari Kaida. It was also renowned for its animated scenes and stellar localization, and launched a sequel and multiple additional remakes. A relatively complex class system and extensive backgrounds for each character helped make the game distinct, while its grid-based combat system made Shining Force II ahead of its time.

With fantastic graphics, a deep turn-based combat system, and puzzle-based gameplay that pushed the boundaries of what RPGs could do outside of combat, Golden Sun was a landmark.

And the fact that it was all on the tiny Game Boy Advance was even more to its credit. A large part of that was its lack of random battles in dungeons, a huge advancement that made Lufia II way ahead of its time.

It even had a randomly generated dungeon, the floor Ancient Cave, another feature of modern games that had yet to reach prominence at that time. Those elements combined with devious puzzles and an engrossing plot, earn Lufia II a spot on the list. Following Yuri Lowell and his guild Brave Vesperia, Tales of Vesperia also featured an engrossing story involving abuse of Blastia energy that threatens the very planet. But the original will always be remembered for its impressive at the time!

As a sequel to the original Shadow Hearts set in the chaos of the first world war, Shadow Hearts: Covenant is one of the best alternate-history RPGs out there.

The unique Judgment Ring made combat exciting, while new additions to the series like the Crest Magic system provided significant advancements over the original. Some wonky localization and dialogue issues only added to its charm.

It was even criticized on its original release for its outdated graphics. Thanks to an involved combat and magic system, a solid story set 1, years after Phantasy Star II, and themes dealing with global climate catastrophe, it remains more than relevant today. Practically every one of its characters has become an iconic hero or villain, and its legacy is immeasurable. Stardew Valley captured hearts by feeling like a throwback to a simpler time in gaming, combining all the best bits of classic home-and-hearth games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing.

It singlehandedly breathed new life into the genre with its polished presentation, deep farming systems, and remarkable freedom. At heart, Persona 5 is a game about shaking off the chains of contemporary society. Oh, sure, it's got some exciting turn-based combat, too, but nothing else about it leaves a mark on your soul quite like its leaps from hobnobbing around a Tokyo high school to venturing inside the dungeons of wayward adults and physically battling their personal demons.

There's so much here, whether it's dungeons with hidden rooms or branching paths, or weighty modern themes centering on suicide and drug use. Its intimate explorations of multiple characters also make it an intensely personal story, and one that shouldn't be missed. JRPGs were in a bit of a funk at the beginning of this decade, but few games sent them surging back to relevance quite like Xenoblade Chronicles.

There's just so much to love about it, whether it's the sprawling open world with its many surprises to discover, the likeable cast of characters, the thrilling action combat, or a day and night cycle that caused enemies to grow stronger after the sun went down. Toss in the stellar soundtrack, and that's a recipe for a game that should be popular for years to come. BioWare first made its name with fantasy RPGs, and Dragon Age: Origins marked a generally triumphant update to its tradition of pause-based combat mechanics and party micromanagement.

But its chief strength was its grim setting in a dark fantasy world that married the high fantasy of The Lord of the Rings with the low fantasy of A Song of Ice and Fire, where elves are treated like trash and magic brought with it terrible prices. It's also a character-driven game in true BioWare fashion, with the standout performance coming from Claudia Black as the role of the witch Morrigan. One of the most appealing aspects of Persona 3 is the way it jumps between what passes through the real world and fantasy, and it pulls it off while being effortlessly cool.

The narrative follows a high school student whose extracurricular activities partly involve fighting creatures that gnaw on human minds during the "Dark Hour," and he's surrounding by memorable characters who aid him in this task. Its greatest legacy, though, is the first appearance of the Social Links system, which lets the player level personas the manifestation of one's inner self while doing normal-world activities as well as by fighting monsters.

Grandia II was one of the Sega Dreamcast's standout RPGs, delivering fantastic graphics for the system and the time and a good, twisty tale about a world still suffering from the effects of a battle between two gods from thousands of years ago.

The battle system was the chief standout, though, as it took the familiar JRPG turn-based formula and rejuvenated it by allowing characters to run behind their opponents or fall back after attacking them. And the rockin' battle anthem with its screaming electric guitars playing over this? That was the grandest part. As big as the Dark Souls games are today, it's still pretty easy to find players who've never even heard of their PS3-exclusive predecessor Demon's Souls.

But the skeleton of what would come to define Hidetaka Miyazaki's later creations were already in place there, whether it's the minimal story, the high likelihood of death at every turn, or the ability to see how other players died from their blood pools. You'll have to read a lot in Xenogears, but it's worth it.

Throughout its many hours, the plot weaves through religious references and philosophical ideas by the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche, all while also prompting deep thoughts about the relationship between humankind and machines.

Naturally, it also lets you stomp around in a giant, spiky mech. It's an ambitious package of near constant wonder, crafted with stellar graphics for the period and complemented with a memorable soundtrack.

The basic thrust of Tales of Symphonia's plot sometimes veered toward cliche, but the little chats between the colorful characters did much to make up for that. Often they had little to do with the plot at hand, and that detachment made them feel more human. Its real-time combat delivers a similar sense of satisfaction, as it's based on a uncommon system that's both 2D and 3D at once. Success demands an entertaining juggle of blocking and dishing out special abilities and normal attacks.

Even so, Tales of Symphonia never loses sight of the fact that characterization should always come first, and the two elements together make for a rewarding package. You have to dig under a pile of glitches and bugs in an unpatched version of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, but if you persist, you'd quickly find one of the most rewarding RPGs ever made.

Set in White Wolf's vampire universe and more specifically in Los Angeles, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines isn't only about sucking blood wherever you can safely find it, but also about shaping your tale according to your actions, beliefs, and your choices.

Few RPGs do this better. It's especially successful because few works in any media have ever captured a vampiric setting so well, and Bloodlines uses every drop of this atmosphere to add meaning to everything from fascinating rivalries between vampire clans to hungry hunts for rats in dirty alleys.

Skies of Arcadia was one of the bright points in the tragic history of the SEGA Dreamcast, and at release it easily turned heads with its colorful art style and rewarding turn-based gameplay.

But it's the airships everyone rightly remembers — beautiful, billowing things that engaged in battles with other ships thousands of feet up in a 3D world with floating islands. Docking the ships allowed you to strut about towns or venture deep into menacing dungeons, where you'd partake in a unique combat system that made your party share one pool of spirit points for spells and thus added a fun dose of risk to each action.

Watch out for those pesky random encounters, though — they tend to get out of hand. The Final Fantasy series had gradually started to look less and less like actual knights-and-dragons fantasy in the years leading up to the turn of the century, but Final Fantasy IX returned the series to its roots. The world — at least in spirit if not in pixels — unfolded with much the same art style that had graced the NES in while still managing to feel fresh.

Intentionally more cartoony than predecessors, it's an endearingly optimistic game that nevertheless handles weighty themes such as guilt and identity with surprising dexterity. But that never really matters so much as the gameplay, which featured the then-unique approach of using tarot cards to influence troops in its automatic battles and taking advantage of the resulting victories to gobble up more territory on a strategic map. Reputation points gained from interactions with NPC factions are important as well, to the point that your choices could lead you to one of 13 different endings.

Post-apocalyptic imagery is somewhat in vogue these days, and thus it's hard to imagine how startlingly original Fallout seemed back during its initial release.